EMBO Lab Leadership for Postdocs
Develop your leadership skills, empower your students, and get great research done.
Who this Course is for
If you are ready to develop your skills as a postdoc supervising students, or ready to take the next step to run your own lab, then this course is for you. Your training and experience so far have given you excellent technical and research skills, including careful observation, data collection, hypothesis development, planning, experimentation, and critical thinking. This course will build on those skills and teach you how to use those ‘research tools’ to work effectively with your people. The course will enhance your leadership with practical tools from psychology, human behavioural science, and the business world. You will learn how to lead with empathy to empower your people to get innovative, reproducible research done.
Style of this Course
The workshop consists of three days (CET/CEST – Berlin):
- Daily: 9:00 – 17:30 (In-person and Online)
- Last day: 9:00 – 16:30 (In-person and Online)
The course is a conversation between you, the other participants, and the trainers, to explore and cultivate your leadership skills. The course relies on your critical thinking, intelligence, and personal experience to work with the tools and models offered to develop your own leadership approach. To facilitate the spirit of discussion and exploration, the trainers deliver the content with contributions from participants captured directly and integrated into the course. The course involves learning about models and tools from psychology, human behavioural science, and business, and a lot of small group work to explore ideas and practice with each other. The emphasis on discussion and interaction also makes the course a great opportunity to network with peers and share the joys and frustrations of being a researcher.
What you will learn
Each course dynamically adapts its schedule to the needs and priorities of the participants. In principle, though: On the first day, we spend some time getting to know one another and building a level of awareness and trust. The course thrives on your contributions and insights, so we want you to feel welcome to share your experience and knowledge.
We spend time thinking about what it means to be a leader and how your values, experiences, and emotions impact the way you approach leadership. We look at how teams work effectively together and what sort of support they need from you, both as a collective and as individuals within the research space.
We look at how you manage your time and attention across the many roles you play as a leader in research; from bottle-washer or debugger to visionary and everything in between.
Finally, we spend some time reflecting on the values that drive our perspectives and behaviour and explore how values can help diverse groups of people understand each other more deeply and find effective ways to share resources and work together.
Topics Covered
Leadership & Management | Role development | Team development | Values
On the second day, we will spend time reflecting on how we are influenced by our emotions, and what impact this has on our effectiveness as leaders. We will also explore one perspective on the rich variety of personalities in the world and how each person’s focus, habits, needs, and motivations leads them to understand and interact with the world.
We will explore a model of communication that looks at how and why people communicate in certain ways, and what impact our own communication style has on the willingness of others to work hard, be honest, develop themselves, and take ownership of their work.
In the afternoon, we will look at the importance of clarity and empathy when delivering feedback to ensure that it is effective and will lead to development and change.
We will finish the day by looking at motivation and what different people need to feel motivated. We will share a diagnostic tool to support you in trouble-shooting low levels of motivation.
Topics Covered
Emotional Intelligence & Personality | Communication | Feedback | Motivation
On the third day, we spend time understanding the nature of conflict and looking at communication and other tools that can help us to identify and resolve conflict.
We will explore the environment in which we work and the impact of other people’s expectations, emotions, and needs on our work together.
We will share a tool for supporting the people you are leading to help them take on work effectively; delegating to them in a way that is aware of their level of development and motivation
We will look at the importance of empowering your people to find their own solutions and develop their own strategies and how to support people in an adaptive way to ensure that when you assign work to them, they are set up for success.
Topics Covered
Conflict management | Working environment | Delegation | Empowering others
EMBO Lab Leadership for Postdocs
In Person
Focus on your leadership skills away from the lab
What’s included
- 3 full days of training
- 3 nights of accommodation
- Breakfast, lunch and dinner
- Course Materials
Live Online
Explore your leadership in a dynamic digital environment
What’s included
- 3 full days of training
- Course Materials
- Dynamic digital experience
Dates & Locations
Our Training Team – Specialised for Scientists
Our trainers come from many different backgrounds, and all have been working directly and extensively with leaders in the life sciences for many years. Our team includes scientists, organisational development experts, human resources professionals, MBA graduates, mathematicians, professional coaches, and others with significant and relevant experience to supporting leaders in the life sciences.
For each course, we provide two trainers to balance their expertise and diversity to ensure that you receive the widest range of expertise, experience and insight possible from your training team.
Applying newly learned skills from this course made an impact on my leadership style, bringing me closer to my aspirations and people around me!
Jorune Sakalauskaite | Postdoc
Vilnius University
The EMBO Lab Leadership course is essential for anyone in leadership or supervisory roles in academia and industry. After completing it, I immediately expressed more empathy towards my colleagues. I found that focusing on active listening and clearly communicating my feelings and needs helped deescalate difficult situations effectively.
Yoel A. Klug | Postdoc
University of Oxford
This course challenged my perspective and equipped me with tools to handle conflict and navigate power dynamics in the lab. Feeling confident & empowered in my work environment!
Babukrishna Maniyadath | Postdoc
University of Southern Denmark
EMBO Lab Leadership at your Institute
If you have a group of leaders that you would like to train together – maximising the benefit of the course by creating supportive, professional relationships between them in addition to building their leadership skills – then we’re happy to come to you! Find out how…